We weren’t exactly surprised by the bombshell revelation on The Bold and the Beautiful that Finn was Luna’s father, but there’s still something shocking about it. Finn may have been adopted by Li, but Poppy still slept with her sister’s son. And we can tell we weren’t the only ones reeling a bit from the news, as fans have been reacting left and right to the paternity news.

And a lot of the reaction has not been kind to Poppy, from taking her nephew’s virginity, to hiding and lying about what happened. Though it’s hard to argue that this isn’t leading to plenty of drama — onscreen and off! Over on the Soaps.com message boards, fans have been going back and forth over who was truly at fault and whether or not this was incestuous.

A whole lot of folks, though, see what Poppy did as grooming her nephew, whether or not he was of age. As davidsimon wrote, “I don’t blame Finn for anything he did with Poppy. She should have stopped it, but she didn’t care that she was taking advantage of Finn.”

And that’s one of the kinder things some fans have said about Li’s little sister. So Romy Park stepped in over on her Instagram stories to defend her character. “Poppy is someone who acts with her emotions in the moment without thought to what the repercussions may be and how that can affect those around her,” Park wrote. “Because of that, people inadvertently get hurt. But she does not intentionally try to hurt people.”

But, the actress wanted to make absolutely clear, Poppy “is not malicious. She has a good heart. She thinks with her heart and not her head, which lead to making poor decisions that can be misinterpreted as selfish. But I don’t believe her intentions are to be selfish.”

People tend not to do the things that Poppy does or act how she acts without a reason, Park noted. “I think she is someone who has been hurt a lot and has had a difficult life,” she mused, “but she doesn’t take that out on other people. Poppy is a bit of a lost person and, I surmise, suffering from some kind of trauma herself which manifests in bad decisions. So then she hides or lies like a child might — but out of fear.”

There’s really only one thing that Poppy wants, mostly like thanks, at least in part, to the hurt she’s been through. And that’s love. As Park explained, her character “equates sex with love. She wants to feel love. She wants to belong. Hence her line to Finn saying that when Bill, Luna and herself were making plans as a family, that is something she only ever dreamt about. And when it turned out Bill wasn’t the father, she said, ‘and then that dream was destroyed… again.’ The ‘again’ is very significant and was intentionally written.”

Bill, though, is someone who Poppy could have built a real family with. He could have finally given her that dream. Finn, on the other hand, can’t. He’s already married, for one thing. For another, Li would probably just flat out kill her sister if Poppy tried building a family with him. And at this point, their sleeping together was decades ago, and there’s just no spark of desire like there was with Bill. But when Poppy and Finn slept together, things were different.

“Regarding her tryst with Finn,” Park admitted, “she got lost in the connection and it led to something that never should have happened. She knows it. She believes the connection they shared at that time was beautiful and doesn’t want to believe it was anything other than that. It was a moment in time when she felt she was loved and wanted — however brief. And she will cling onto all those moments in her life where she felt some sort of acceptance. If she lets that go, then we have a person who might succumb to all the negativity in her life.”

Plus, something truly beautiful came out of the affair: a daughter. Or, at least, it was beautiful until Luna turned on her mother.

“Poppy’s first and true love is her daughter,” Park added. “It’s heartbreaking because Luna doesn’t love her back. So, Poppy has truly lost everything because Luna was/is her world. When Poppy was wrongfully imprisoned, her concern was for Luna, rather than herself. That is not the thought process of a selfish mother. She might not have been the best mother, but her heart was always in the right place.”

Park ended her discussion by explaining what she’s drawn on from real life to develop her character, and suggesting that we may all be better off if we weren’t so quick to judge others.

“My character development for Poppy was influenced by the stories of others,” she explained, “which I encountered during my hiatus from acting to study therapy. It was through my field study that I attended numerous group therapy sessions. It expanded my mind and my heart and I grew enormously as a human being.

“It was then that I learned I must never judge anyone at face value. I must not be quick to make conclusions about someone’s character based solely on their actions, personality, etc., and that I must first understand their experiences and what shaped their life and that the best quality that a therapist or counsellor possesses is compassion. It is an important quality for the human race in general, but particularly for those who work in the service of others — people or animals.”

Maybe that’s enough to get some fans to take another, perhaps kinder look at Poppy. But we wouldn’t hold our breath on Li being understanding at all. She’s been on an apology tour with her sister, but when Li finally gets wind of who Luna’s father really is, we’ve got a feeling Poppy may want to find the deepest hole she can to hide in!